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Stories About Our Objects

Curtiss 1912 Headless Pusher Replica Story

When he learned to fly in 1916, Northwest Airlines Chief Pilot Walter Bullock had owned an original Curtiss Pusher. In the 1940's he wanted to fly one again but no originals could be found.

In 1947 he completed and flew his replica. The wings are faithful to the original but the engine and the structure are much modernized using a Continental 85 in place of the primitive Curtiss engine and steel tube instead the original wood and bamboo.

Bullock and the plane's second owner, Peter M. Bowers both put many hours on the plane, flying both for pleasure and to reenact a number of famous flights.

In 1959 Bowers reenacted Glenn Curtiss' 1910 Hudson River flight which won a $10,000 purse for the first airplane flight from Albany, NY to New York City.

The plane changed hands again, and is now on display at WAAAM.

In 1992, Tom Murphy, WAAAM's Director of Restorations, flew this airplane from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington, reenacting the first interstate air mail flight in the U.S. done in 1912 by Walter Edwards. A few months before Edwards' flight Silas Christofferson, flying the same airplane that Edwards flew, had departed Portland from the roof of the new eight-story Multnomah Hotel and flew to Vancouver Barracks. In 1995 Tom Murphy reenacted Christofferson's flight using this airplane. A short video about Tom's flight plays at the museum throughout the day.